Reply #19: Thanks for coming out with this. We need more scientists willing to speak out [View All]

against the strangle hold that business has on the federal government under the Bush administration.

I do not know if you have any way to know about this, but I have been concerned that the FDA has been banning old, grandfathered remedies in a deliberate attempt to boost the sales of patent drugs sold by various pharmaceutical companies, specifically Glaxo-Smith-Kline. For example, quinine, which a number of my elderly patient had used for years for leg cramps back when I was in private practice suddenly got yanked from the shelves at the same time that GSK was doing a big direct to the public marketing campaign for Requip. And all but one ergot containing migraine headache remedies were banned at the same time that GSK was doing a direct to public marketing campaign of its much more expensive migraine headache medication.

Odd coincidences like this---it really looked like the FDA was creating business for GSK or at the very least had coordinated with GSK, giving them a heads up to start an ad campaign, produce their ads, buy the ad time and start running the ads right before the bans were announced---make the FDA look like the errand boys of the drug industry.

And then we discover that the FDA knew a year ago about the cardiac concerns with Avandia, but did not think that they were worth pursuing. The cardiac problems with Avandia are at least as worrisome as the reasons they cited for banning quinine and all but one ergot, IMO. Quinine and ergot were yanked from the shelves because they had been implicated in a handful of cardiac deaths and there were safer alternatives available. Avandia has been implicated in cardiac deaths and there are safer alternatives available. The only difference I can see between the two cases is the Idiocracy (from the movie) difference. If we stop watering the crops with Brando, the Brando Company will lose money, so we must continue to use Brando/Avandia for the health of the economy. However ergot and quinine are cheap generics that make no big drug company any money. Indeed, they save a lot of consumers a lot of money that they should be spending on Requip and Imitrex instead.